School board to vote on new high school boundaries

TEMECULA -- Boundaries for the school district's newest high
school, to open in August, are scheduled to be determined by
district trustees tonight.

The new boundaries could affect students attending the
district's current high schools, although intra-district transfers
will be allowed for students who want to remain in the schools they
now attend.

The Temecula Valley Unified School District board is expected to
vote on the boundaries for the new campus, Great Oak High School,
in its meeting at 6 p.m. at the district's conference facility,
Rooms A, B, and C, 31350 Rancho Vista Road.

The school district's staff drew up three possible boundary
alignments and is recommending what is called Option 3.

In Option 3, students now within Chaparral High School's
boundary north of Murrieta Hot Springs Road would attend Temecula
Valley High School. Students living in two Chaparral High pockets
east of Butterfield Stage Road would be in Great Oak's attendance
area.

That area range from the south side of Highway 79 South, and
extend north on the east side of Butterfield Stage Road to Pauba
Road. From there, the area would arc east and north to the
district's boundary beyond Lake Skinner.

A goal in drafting the proposals was to disrupt as few families
as possible and minimize changes resulting from the opening of a
fourth high school in 2007 in French Valley, said Shirley Cordner,
the district's coordinator for facilities planning.

Students who would have to move can apply for transfers by a
March 15 deadline to stay in their current school.

Under the boundaries now, students living north of Rancho
California Road, west of Butterfield Stage Road and a portion of
French Valley attend Chaparral, except for two small pockets east
of Butterfield Stage Road. The rest of the school district attends
Temecula Valley.

Great Oak is being built on Deer Hollow Way in the southern part
of the district.

Option 3 is the best way to keep the enrollment balanced among
the high schools, Cordner said. The third option allows Vail Ranch
Middle School students to stay together, rather than being split up
and also would eliminate the need for moving high school students
again when the fourth high school opens.

All three boundary options would help ease potential
overcrowding at Chaparral High, a staff report states.

"Option 3 had the most long-range effectiveness," Cordner
said.

The recommended option would allow students living in French
Valley who attend Chaparral to stay there, but future French Valley
students would attend Temecula Valley High until the fourth high
school opens.

School board members Bob Brown and Ken Ray said that, while they
hadn't made up their minds Monday, they would support the map that
is least disruptive to families.

"I want to know which will affect kids the least … and is the
least disruptive," said Brown, the board president.

Ray said he wants to avoid having families with several children
spread out at Temecula's public schools.

"The main thing I'm looking for is flexibility so we don't have
kids for their entire high school career way the heck out of their
neighborhood," Ray said.